The text is that of the Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne produced at the Ohio State University Center for Textual Studies―a critical unmodernized reconstruction―to which the editors of this Norton Critical Edition have added extensive annotation.

The selection of "Backgrounds and Sources" focuses on Hawthorne's visit to Brook Farm in 1841, as reported in his letters and The American Notebooks, as well as on other experiences and observations which find expression in the novel.

The essays in "Criticism" include fifteen "Contemporary Reviews" that locate the problems of the novel pursued by later critics in a more detailed and sophisticated fashion.

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From the Inside Flap:

The Blithedale Romance, considered one of Hawthorne's major novels, explores the limitations of human nature set against an experiment in communal living. From mesmerism to illicit love, The Blithedale Romance represents one of Hawthorne's best and most sharply etched works, one that Henry James called his "brightest" and "liveliest" novel, and that Roy Male, acclaimed Americanist scholar, said is "one of the most underrated works in American fiction." This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition is set from the definitive Ohio State University Press Centenary edition of the novel.